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California Air Board Moves to Increase Presence of Zero-Emissions Vehicles

By Jim Witkin December 8, 2011 11:45 amDecember 8, 2011 11:45 am

Andrew Gombert/European Pressphoto AgencyA package of regulations introduced by the state board would require automakers to produce increasing numbers of zero-emission vehicles for the 2018-2025 model years. Above, evening rush hour in Los Angeles.

4:55 p.m. | Updated

California has the worst air quality in the country, according to the state’s air resources board, and 40 percent of the contributing pollution comes from passenger cars and light-duty trucks. In its effort to improve the state’s air, the board, commonly known as CARB, proposed a package of new rules on Wednesday intended to cut vehicle emissions while aggressively increasing the number of advanced clean cars on the state’s roads, as well as fueling stations to serve them.

The package, called the Advanced Clean Cars program, would apply to light-duty vehicles manufactured from 2015 to 2025. It combines four sets of related standards that were previously tracked separately by the agency: greenhouse gas limits, the Zero Emission Vehicle (ZEV) mandate, the Low Emission Vehicle (LEV-III) program and the newly created Clean Fuels Outlet regulation.

Combining these standards in a single program should simplify rule making and compliance, and help the state reach its greenhouse gas targets, officials said. In a 2005 executive order, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger established a goal to bring greenhouse-gas emissions in 2050 to 80 percent below their levels of 1990.

The new ZEV proposal would oblige automakers doing business in the state to devote 15.4 percent of their fleet to zero-emission vehicles by 2025. At this level of production, one in seven new vehicles sold in 2025 would qualify as zero emission, according to the board’s estimates. From 2018 to 2025, this mandate would put 1.4 million new clean cars on the road. ZEVs would need to comprise 87 percent of the on-road fleet by 2050 to meet greenhouse gas targets set in the 2005 executive order.

Additionally, stringent new smog standards would require all passenger cars and light trucks sold in California to reach the state’s super-ultra-low emission vehicle, or SULEV, standards by 2025. The measure is intended to reduce emissions of nonmethane organic gases and nitrogen oxides, which contain the principal smog-forming pollutants.

If approved by the state’s Office of Administrative Law, the new package of regulations would be enacted into law in 2012, according to a board spokesman, Stanley Young. Mr. Young wrote in an e-mail that he would expect other states to follow California’s recommendations on greenhouse-gas standards and ZEV mandates, as they had done in the past.

If enacted into state law, the board estimates that 2025 model-year cars would produce 34 percent less greenhouse gas emissions on a fleetwide level compared with 2016 models, the last year for which standards were in place. The new standards would eliminate 52 million tons of these emissions by 2025, the equivalent of taking 10 million cars off the road, Mr. Young said.

But at least one environmental group has already suggested that the state’s proposal did not go far enough.

After reviewing a summary of the regulations that were available in mid-November, the Union of Concerned Scientists issued a statement describing the package as “impressive progress,” while qualifying that the ZEV mandates would need to be more aggressive to reach the 2050 clean-air goals. The group is pushing for a 30 percent increase in these mandates, which would effectively put 1.8 million zero-emission vehicles on the road by 2025, it said.

Mr. Young noted that a public comment period would begin on Dec. 12 and run through Jan. 26, allowing any interested party to comment on the new regulations. All comments will be posted on CARB’s Web site for review.

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